There are meters out there (I have one) that use mercury batteries which are no longer available. The Wein zinc-air battery is a replacement, but according to the guys at the photo store, it only lasts about 3 months. And the alkaline replacements may or may not work well, because they are lower voltage than the mercury batteries. So I decided to upgrade the meter rather than buy batteries 4x a year.

So I switched to meters that uses easy to find batteries, and also had a flash meter capability.

Gossen Luna-Pro F - 9v rectangular battery (aka transistor radio battery for us old folks)
I also like the dial/needle combination, as it is easier to use than a digital meter. I can instantly see all the different f-stop+shutter speed combinations.

I would vote for the Gossen DigiPro F, it takes a single AA battery and unlike the Sekonic 308 can be set to aperture or shutter priority. The Sekonic can only be used as a shutter priority meter, so you can find yourself scrolling through the reading until you get to the aperture you want to use. As a reflectance meter you can also rotate the head of the Gossen to face the subject, on the Sekonic you have to turn the display away from you each time you take a reading. Small things, but they help if you need to work quickly.

[QUOTE=darinwc;1465978]
One thing I like about the sekonic studio delux is the lumisphere faces towards me instead of away from me.

Are you sure it only faces you? Mine swivels and can be pointed away. The proper use of an incident meter requires it be taken to the subject and pointed back at the camera, so it really doesn't matter if it does not swivel. You can hold the meter up into the approximate similar light as the subject to get a reading.

why the fascination with batteries? I recently bought a sekonic studio deluxe III model L398A--- no batteries, supreme accuracy, incident or reflected, the dome swivels 180 degrees, is the size of a pack of cards and not much thicker.

and no batteries to replace. I bought this one because my old one, which was 40 years old, finally had so many broken pieces of the exterior from being dropped that i was worried dirt would hurt its accuracy, which never faltered.

There are meters out there (I have one) that use mercury batteries which are no longer available. The Wein zinc-air battery is a replacement, but according to the guys at the photo store, it only lasts about 3 months. And the alkaline replacements may or may not work well, because they are lower voltage than the mercury batteries. So I decided to upgrade the meter rather than buy batteries 4x a year.

So I switched to meters that uses easy to find batteries, and also had a flash meter capability.

Gossen Luna-Pro F - 9v rectangular battery (aka transistor radio battery for us old folks)
I also like the dial/needle combination, as it is easier to use than a digital meter. I can instantly see all the different f-stop+shutter speed combinations.

Minolta Autometer IV - AA battery

Luna Pro F is an SBC with flash capability (without attachment.)

I have an SBC. As folks said, not small, quite a handful really, but a great meter.

I marveled a bit at the description of the battery as a "smoke detector battery" myself. To me it's a transistor radio battery forever, even if they haven't made the device that refers to in that form in decades.

I'm sure there are many, but I'll start it off with the Gossen LunaPro SBC, takes a 9 volt smoke alarm battery.

Roger

The Lunapro SBC is around 25 years old,as big as many compact cameras and Gossen no longer service analogue meters due to the lack of spare parts.
A modern Gossen lightmeter that suite the O.P's requirements is the Gossen Digipro F http://www.gossen-photo.de/english/foto_p_digipro.php, and it runs on a single AA battery. I own both these meters I've retired the Lunapro I prefer the digital one.

Last edited by benjiboy; 02-23-2013 at 08:32 AM. Click to view previous post history.